E3 2005: Unreal Tournament 2007

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The future of shooters looks Epic.

By Dan Adams

If you haven't heard about the Unreal Engine 3 technology, you probably aren't really a gamer. It's all over the place. PC will have it. Xbox 360 will have it. PlayStation 3 will have it. Everybody seems to be licensing this engine and it's no wonder why after seeing both Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 2007. This engine is crazy good. The screenshots really weren't a lie. I saw the game running and it looked like a nerdgasm running across the monitor.

Before the presentation even really began for realtime gameplay, Epic and publisher Midway play a prepared piece about the history of the Unreal franchise, which was pretty cool to see simply for the trip down memory lane and the great comparisons between the old and the new. They showed Malcolm models and weapons from Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004, and finally the new Unreal Tournament 2007. The difference was striking. Malcolm especially looked ridiculously detailed in this new rendering. The presentation itself was pretty cute. Especially when Malcolm threatened to bitchslap a robot standing too close to his new Scorpion. Awwwww...

After the presentation, the real fun began as Malcolm ran out into the street and started blowing people away in the new Conquest mode of play. Conquest is being described as a mix between both assault and onslaught. It has the feel of onslaught with the vehicles and scope, but has objective based gameplay as in assault mode.

The cool thing is how the game keeps moving back and forth among the two sides. Both sides have objectives to complete so that it's not a strictly attack and defend game. The teams will each have their own separate objectives, but more than that, they'll have options for how they approach them and how they defend the objectives the other team is trying to hit.

The idea sounds great. It's a little hard to see this played out in a five minute demonstration of the game engine and how freaking hot it looks. Partly because getting mesmerized by the pretty pictures is a bit too easy. The level that was chosen to be the E3 demo was a cramped city level full of flashing lights, beautifully detailed buildings, and plenty of random objects.

Most of the tour taken through the city also happened to be while riding on the inside of the Akron Goliath Tank. This bad boy looks a thousand times better than we've seen in the past, especially when rolling through a city that casts all kinds of dynamic lights and shadows across its outer hull. The design is still basically the same however as are the designs for all of the Akron vehicles. Before the end of the map, we had the chance to see a whole bunch of Mantas as they sped out of a hangar right into the sights of the Goliath tank. Did I mention that the explosions look really good too?

Necris vehicles, on the other hand, are apparently going to be a completely different ball of wax. What exactly they'll look like and what they'll behave like is yet to be seen. If they're anywhere near as good as the Akron stuff, it might be hard to contain my joyous dancing.

Eventually, after wandering around the gorgeous city, Malcolm and the tank rolled its way into the area of the enemy headquarters at which point Malcolm jumped out of the tank and ran into the headquarters which set off an event that blew the building sky high.

My only complaint at this point is that the demo was really not long enough to feel satisfied with the look. Epic and Midway's teasing is almost unbearable. What do the rest of the levels look like? Are there crazy levels like Convoy? The seamless technology of Unreal Engine 3 allows for some really large areas that are tied together easily, so I have to imagine the best.

It'll be hard to wait to see more of this incredible engine and the game it helps to spawn. With the franchise firmly back in the hands of Epic (with no plans of leaving anytime soon), expect good things and expect to be the first ones to know when we get any more new information on Unreal Tournament 2007.